Technological advancements have permitted the development of computer systems and networks that provide for the collection, processing, and storage of data. Many business, and other, enterprises require ready access to computer systems to perform the collection, processing, and storage of the data.
Groups of computer stations are sometimes interconnected to form local area networks (LANs), and groups of local area networks are sometimes interconnected to form wide area networks (WANs). The Internet is sometimes functionally represented as a public WAN. A computer server is a computer station that, typically, has a large storage capacity and, at least selectably permits data stored thereat to be accessed and data to be written thereto. Computer servers are relatively costly, particularly when needed to store large amounts of data with many read and write operations performed thereon. Additionally, the data is sometimes of a proprietary or confidential nature. And, multiple servers are sometimes used, e.g., to provide for redundancy. For both security and cost reasons, the data servers, as well as other computer system devices, are sometimes maintained at a data center. The data center is maintained at controlled ambient temperature and humidity levels to ensure that the ambient conditions at the data center do not interfere with operation of the computer stations installed thereat. And, a data center is easily made to be limited access, both to personnel and to access to the computer servers and other devices thereat.
A data center is typically provided by way of one or more power grids through which electrical power is transmitted by one or more regional power providers. A data center is sometimes constructed at a location at which redundant power sources are available.
Recent concerns have been directed towards the level of carbon emissions of power-generative facilities that generate electrical power. Various studies and models indicate that carbon emissions are a cause of, or contributing factor in, global warming. Various efforts are starting to be made to provide incentives to use power generated by power facilities that emit lesser levels of carbon emissions. Renewable energy sources, such as energy sources that generate power from wind energy or water energy. The use of such alternate energy sources, when substituted for use of high, carbon-emotive energy sources, shall hopefully help emiliarate the trend of the higher average global temperatures.
In some regulatory schemes, power generation is privatized, and consumers of electrical power are provided choice in the electrical power provider. Different electrical power providers might have different production costs and corresponding price rates. And, different power providers might generate power in different manners, each with a different carbon foot print, i.e., level of carbon emissions. In other regulatory jurisdictions, consumers of electrical power do not have an opportunity to select from amongst different electrical power providers.
A large business, or other, enterprise sometimes has multiple data centers positioned at disparate locations, sometimes even on different continents. Different ones of the data centers might well be provided with electrical power generated by different electrical power providers. And, different ones of the data centers might have different processing capacities and different processing availabilities, depending on any of various factors.
Processing that is to be preformed by the enterprise might be carried out at any of the different data centers. The selection of data centers at which to perform the processing has, to date, not generally taken into account the carbon emissions of the power generative facility that provides the different ones of the data centers with electrical power.
If a manner could be provided by which to make data-center, processing selection that takes into account carbon emissions of the power-generative facilities that provide power to the data centers, carbon emissions associated with the operation of a data center could be reduced.
It is in light of this background information related to processing of data that the significant improvements of the present invention have evolved.